How to Spend ONE to THREE DAYS in Nagoya, Japan: 1 to 3-Day Itinerary

Looking for the perfect one, two, or three-day Nagoya itinerary? You’re in the right place!

Nagoya sometimes gets overlooked in favor of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, but we think this city deserves a spot on your Japan itinerary. There’s a huge amount of history here, as well as fantastic local food and some really fun attractions. Plus, it’s an excellent base for exploring further afield.

Whether you have one day or three, we’ve put together an itinerary that will help you make the most of your time. We’ll cover Nagoya’s must-see sights, introduce you to some of the city’s best food, and fit in an epic day trip to Ghibli Park or the Nakasendo Trail. Let’s get into it!

Itinerary Overview

⛩️Day 1: Discover Nagoya’s Top Sights & Check Out Mirai Tower
Explore Nagoya’s main highlights on a private guided tour, then dive into the local food scene with hitsumabushi for dinner. Finish up with spectacular views of the city lights from MIRAI TOWER.

🎥Day 2: Visit Ghibli Park, Go Hiking, & Relax in Nagoya
Choose between a full-day Ghibli Park tour or a guided hike along the historic Nakasendo Trail, before heading back to Nagoya for dinner at a super unique and stylish beer hall.

🍜Day 3: Shinto Shrines, Street Food Tour, & Science Museum
Visit one of Japan’s most important Shinto shrines and then taste your way through Osu on a guided street food tour. Spend the afternoon exploring the interactive FUJI Nagoya Science Museum and end your trip with a special dinner at one of the city’s most historic hotels.

Day 1

Breakfast – Malibu Coffee 

You’ve got a full day of sightseeing ahead, so you’ll want to fuel up! You can either grab breakfast at your hotel or head to Malibu Coffee in Sakae. We like this option because it opens at 8 am and is close enough to central hotels that you can eat properly without rushing across the city first. They also have an English menu, which is helpful. 

We love trying out local breakfasts, so when we came here we went for the ogura butter toast. It’s thick toast topped with sweet red bean paste, and not only is it yummy, but it’s also a classic Nagoya breakfast! 

We recommend getting here around 8 am, then heading back to your hotel around 9 am so you have time to freshen up before your guide collects you at roughly 9:45 am. If your hotel is further from Sakae, just allow a little extra travel time or find a breakfast spot close to your hotel!

Morning/Afternoon – Explore Nagoya’s highlights with a local guide

For your first day in Nagoya, this private highlights tour with a local guide is the perfect way to get your bearings! Your guide will pick you up from your hotel at around 9:45 am, although the exact time will be confirmed after booking. Then you’ll spend the next six hours exploring some of Nagoya’s most famous sights.

The day starts at Nagoya Castle, where you can explore the beautiful Hommaru Palace and learn more about the city’s samurai history. The main castle tower is currently closed to visitors, but there’s still plenty to see here. And if you’re lucky, you might even spot one of Nagoya’s samurai or ninja performers!

From there, you’ll head into the city center to explore places like Oasis 21, Sakae, Osu Shopping Street, and Osu Kannon Temple. We really like that this is a private tour, because you’re not stuck following a rigid group itinerary. Your guide can tailor the experience to your interests and spend more time on the places you’re enjoying most.

They can also help you choose somewhere for lunch, which is a great opportunity to try one of Nagoya’s local specialties. Just bear in mind that lunch isn’t included, and you’ll need to cover your guide’s meal too.

But what really makes this tour stand out is the local insight. A good guide can add so much context to places you might otherwise overlook, especially when it comes to etiquette and little cultural details. 

The tour should finish at your hotel, or another agreed location, at around 3:45 pm. Take some time to rest back at your hotel before heading out for dinner this evening.

Dinner – Hitsumabushi bincho

For dinner tonight, it’s time to try one of Nagoya’s most famous dishes: hitsumabushi! We recommend heading to Hitsumabushi Nagoya Bincho in the LACHIC shopping complex around 6 pm, as it’s well known as one of the best spots in town to try this local specialty.

Hitsumabushi is grilled eel served over rice, but there’s a specific way to eat it that makes the meal much more fun. You divide your eel and rice into four portions, then eat the first one as it comes. For the second, add toppings like wasabi, green onion, and nori before pouring dashi broth over the third to turn it into ochazuke. Then for round four, just repeat whichever version you liked best!

Bincho cooks its eel over charcoal without steaming it first, which gives it a crispier skin while keeping the inside tender and smoky. If you’ve never tried unagi before, this is a pretty fantastic place to start.

We’d definitely recommend booking a table ahead, especially if you’re visiting at the weekend. Aim to finish up at around 7:30 pm, and then it’s a 10-minute walk to our next spot: MIRAI TOWER! 

Evening – See Nagoya illuminated from MIRAI TOWER 

After dinner, it should take around 10 minutes to walk through Sakae to Chubu Electric Power MIRAI TOWER, where you’ll enjoy some of the best nighttime views in Nagoya. It’s a pretty spectacular way to wrap up your first day here, and you’ll get to see many of the places you explored earlier from a totally different perspective!

Take the elevator up to the indoor Sky Deck, which sits around 90 meters above the city, and then you’ll head out onto the open-air Sky Balcony. From up here, you can look down over the illuminated Oasis 21 and Hisaya-odori Park, with Nagoya stretching out around you.

Entry currently costs ¥1,300 (around $8 USD), although it can be slightly more expensive when special projection-mapping events are taking place. And definitely bring an extra layer, as it can get surprisingly chilly and windy on the open-air deck!

We’d spend around an hour here before calling it a night. If you’re not ready for bed just yet, you can take a stroll through Hisaya-odori Park or head into Sakae for a drink. Just don’t go too wild, because both of tomorrow’s day-trip options involve an early start!

Day 2

Breakfast – Fuel up near Nagoya Station 

Both of today’s tour options leave from around Nagoya Station, so we recommend heading there for breakfast rather than eating in Sakae. Komeda Coffee in the Esca underground shopping center is a great option, and it opens nice and early at 7 am.

Komeda is actually a Nagoya-born coffee chain, so we thought it was only right to check it out! During the morning service, ordering a drink gets you thick toast with a choice of toppings, including boiled egg or sweet ogura red bean paste.

If you’re heading to Ghibli Park, you’ll need to be up bright and early. Leave Sakae at around 7 am and aim to finish breakfast by 8 am, as you’ll need time to navigate Nagoya Station and reach the meeting point at the Nagoya Marriott Associa Hotel by 8:20 am.

If you’re hiking Nakasendo, you can sleep for slightly longer and leave Sakae closer to 8 am. Just make sure you also pick up a bento box and snacks at Nagoya Station before you meet your guide. There are tons of convenience stores and food counters around the station, so you’ll have plenty of choice! Make sure to grab a few bottles of water for the hike, too. 

Option 1: Full-day – Step into the wonderful world of Studio Ghibli 

If you love Studio Ghibli, then choosing Ghibli Park for your day trip is pretty much a no-brainer! This option is so much fun, and it offers something completely different from all of the temples and shrines. Plus, taking this organized tour makes your day simple with transportation, lunch, and entrance tickets included.

You’ll need another early start today, as the tour leaves Nagoya at 8:40 am. You’ll meet your guide at the Tour Bus Boarding Area on the first floor of the Nagoya Marriott Associa Hotel, and you should aim to arrive at least 20 minutes early. Nagoya Station is huge, and you don’t want to be sprinting through it at the last minute!

Ghibli Park brings some of the studio’s most famous worlds to life, and there’s so much charm packed into the different areas, from the Valley of Witches to Mononoke Village. Getting Ghibli Park tickets independently can be really difficult (they’re like gold dust!), but with this tour, your admission is already arranged so you can be sure that you won’t miss out on the magic.

As well as those all-important park tickets, you get round-trip transport from Nagoya, a bento lunch, and an English-speaking guide who explains what to expect before you arrive. Ghibli Park feels a bit like a giant maze, so this is a huge help!

Once you arrive, you’ll have around five hours to explore the park at your own pace. We love this because you can spend more time in the areas that mean the most to you, rather than being marched around in a group all day.

Depending on the date, you’ll also visit an additional museum afterward. For Studio Ghibli fans, we think this is easily the most magical of our two day-trip options. Even if you’re not a superfan, it’s such an enchanting place to visit. Just make sure to book well in advance, because unsurprisingly, this one is incredibly popular!

Option 2: Full-day – Hike the iconic Nakasendo Trail

If you love hiking, then you can’t miss the chance to experience the iconic Nakasendo Trail while you’re in Nagoya. This was once one of the main routes connecting Kyoto and Edo (modern-day Tokyo), and travelers used post towns like Tsumago and Magome as places to rest along the way. Walking between them today feels special because so much of the old route and traditional architecture has been very well preserved.

This is actually the option we chose for our third day here, and we loved getting to see a quieter and more rural side of Japan. Plus, booking this tour meant that we didn’t need to worry about transport or logistics! 

You’ll meet your guide beneath the Silver Clock inside Nagoya Station at around 9:15 am for the 9:30 am departure. The drive out to the Kiso Valley takes roughly two hours, and the hike starts in Tsumago-juku. 

Parts of the trail still have their original cobblestones, and the route winds through thick forest and past two waterfalls, so it’s super scenic. We won’t lie, some sections are fairly steep, but the scenery makes the effort so worth it.

Our guide, Aemir, was absolutely amazing. He knew so much about Japanese history and culture and kept pointing out little details we definitely would have missed on our own. We also loved being able to focus on actually enjoying the walk instead of constantly checking maps. He also took us to his favorite oyaki spot on the trail, where we enjoyed some of these stuffed buckwheat dumplings. They tasted extra good after all of the hiking!

By the time we reached Magome, we were pretty tired, but very fulfilled. The wooden buildings and mountain views certainly made for a rewarding finish to the hike! We had such a great time hiking through this charming, rural part of Japan and we’d do this tour again in a heartbeat. 

Dinner – Master’s Dream House 

After a full day out, you’ll probably be more than ready for dinner! Luckily, Master’s Dream House is directly connected to Nagoya Station inside JR Gate Tower, so you won’t have to trek across the city after either tour.

This stylish beer hall sits on the 13th floor and specializes in Suntory beer, with fantastic views over Nagoya thrown in for good measure. Suntory is one of Japan’s biggest drinks companies and produces several popular Japanese beers, including The Premium Malt’s. The restaurant is actually named after its premium brew, Master’s Dream, which was formulated to represent the brewers’ idea of the perfect beer!

If you’re a beer fan, you can do a tasting here and see what the fuss is all about! We went for the Tasting 4, which let us try four different beers, including Master’s Dream. It was so much fun, and the food here complements the beer perfectly. We ordered the grilled Chita beef with wasabi and smoked soy sauce, but you could also order a few smaller dishes to share instead.

It’s best to make a reservation here to ensure that you don’t miss out. We recommend requesting a window table, as the views across Nagoya after dark are amazing! Book for 6:30 pm if you’re visiting Ghibli Park today, or go for 7:30 pm if you’re hiking Nakasendo, just in case you hit traffic on the way back into the city. Then, after all of today’s adventures, you’re probably going to want to head back to your hotel and get some rest. 

Day 3

Morning – Visit Atsuta Jingu, one of Japan’s most important Shinto shrines

For our final day in Nagoya, we’re out starting bright and early at Atsuta Jingu. Grab breakfast at your hotel or pick something up from a convenience store, then aim to reach the shrine at around 8:15 am. It’s open throughout the day, but we think it’s worth coming early while the grounds are still nice and quiet.

Atsuta Jingu has almost 1,900 years of history and is one of the most important Shinto shrines in Japan. It’s associated with Kusanagi no Tsurugi, a sacred sword that forms part of Japan’s Three Imperial Regalia. You can’t actually see the sword, but knowing it’s connected to the shrine gives you an idea of just how significant this place is.

The grounds themselves are beautiful, with wide gravel paths winding beneath huge camphor trees. Keep an eye out for the enormous Okusu tree, which is believed to be more than 1,000 years old!

There’s also a wall here donated by Oda Nobunaga after his victory at the Battle of Okehazama in 1560, so there are little pieces of Japanese history tucked all around the grounds. Best of all, Atsuta Jingu is completely free to visit. Give yourself around 1.5 hours to explore before heading back to the subway to head towards the food tour.

Lunch/Early afternoon – Taste your way through Osu on a street food tour 

After exploring Atsuta Jingu, it’s time for lunch, but we’re not sending you to just one restaurant! Instead, this Osu street food tour lets you sample your way around one of Nagoya’s liveliest neighborhoods while learning more about the city’s food culture.

From the shrine, you can take the subway towards Osu, although we actually ended up hopping in a taxi after such an early start! Either way, aim to reach the 7-Eleven beside Osu Kannon Station Exit 2 by around 10:30 am. You’ll meet your guide here at 10:45 am, ready for the tour to begin at 11 am.

Osu is one of our favorite areas to explore in Nagoya because there’s so much going on. The huge covered shopping streets are packed with little restaurants, food stalls, and quirky, independent shops, so a food tour is a really fun way to get to know the neighborhood.

Over the next two hours, your guide will take you to several different stops to try local snacks and specialties. We especially love doing food tours in Japan because there are so many things we probably wouldn’t know to order otherwise, and having a local guide means you get the story behind what you’re eating too. Plus, this doubles as lunch, so you’ll be nicely fueled up for the science museum this afternoon!

Afternoon – Have your mind blown at the FUJI Nagoya Science Museum 

After the food tour, walk for around 10 to 15 minutes through Shirakawa Park to the FUJI Nagoya Science Museum. This place is SO much fun, even if you’re not usually much of a museum fan. To be honest, I can often take or leave museums, but I had a blast here! 

There are several floors of interactive exhibits covering everything from astronomy and weather to physics and engineering. If we mentioned them all, we’d be here for hours, but we do have to talk about a couple of the big demonstrations. For example, the Tornado Lab creates a nine-meter artificial twister – how crazy is that? And don’t miss the demo in the Electric Discharge Lab, which uses enormous Tesla coils to produce four-meter bolts of electricity!

But our favorite stop had to be the Deep Freezing Lab, where we experienced temperatures of -30°C and learned about polar environments. You can even see an artificial aurora in here, so this definitely isn’t your average museum exhibit!

We’d allow around three hours for the museum and check the demonstration timetable as soon as you arrive, as spaces and showtimes can be limited. There’s also a huge 35-meter planetarium, although presentations are primarily in Japanese and you’ll need a separate ticket.

Museum admission is only around ¥400 ($2.50 USD) or ¥800 ($5 USD) if you include the planetarium admission. We think this is amazing value for money given how incredible this place is – it’s probably the best museum we’ve ever been to! Just double-check the opening calendar when planning your itinerary, as the museum is normally closed on Mondays, and a couple of additional dates throughout the year. 

Dinner – Celebrate your final night at The Kawabun Nagoya

It’s your final dinner in Nagoya, so let’s make it extra special! And there’s no better place to do that than The Kawabun Nagoya, set within the grounds of a historic ryotei that dates back around 400 years. In fact, it once welcomed members of the Owari Tokugawa family!

The setting here is absolutely gorgeous, with traditional Japanese architecture and peaceful gardens, but the food actually takes things in a different direction. The restaurant serves Italian-inspired dishes made with seasonal Japanese ingredients, which we think will be a welcome change after spending the past few days getting stuck into Nagoya specialties!

The signature dinner is a seasonal seven-course menu, so exactly what you’ll eat depends on when you visit. However, you can definitely expect Japanese meat and seafood along with handmade pasta and yummy Italian desserts. Prices start at around ¥8,000 ($50 USD) on weekdays, and that rises to  ¥11,000 ($70 USD) on weekends. It’s definitely a splurge compared to some of the other meals in this itinerary, but hey, it’s your last night! 

This is one of Nagoya’s most iconic restaurants, so be sure to book a table. We recommend making a reservation for around 6:30 pm and requesting a garden view if one is available. They’ve got a great wine list, so grab a glass and toast to three amazing days in Nagoya – cheers!

Evening – Stroll through the Shikemichi historic district

If you feel like walking your dinner off before bed, take a 10- to 15-minute walk through the Shikemichi historic district before you hit the hay. This atmospheric little area is known for its old merchant houses and warehouses, which offer a glimpse into Nagoya’s Edo-period trading history.

Most of the businesses will be closed by this point, but that’s actually a good thing! After a busy three days, it’s nice to just wander through the quiet streets and admire the traditional buildings without having anywhere else to be.

And if you fancy one last drink, you can continue towards Fushimi and find somewhere for a cocktail, some Japanese whisky, or another glass of wine. Otherwise, there’s no shame in calling it a night and heading back to your hotel. It’s been a jam-packed three days, so we think a peaceful evening stroll is the perfect way to say goodbye to Nagoya!

Related Read: Looking for more activities to fill your time? See our list of the best things to do in Nagoya here!

Where to Stay in Nagoya

Nagoya is Japan’s fourth largest city, so choosing the right area to stay matters! For this itinerary, we were based in the Sakae area. Not only is it a convenient base, but it’s also close to Nagoya’s top sights and has a fun, lively atmosphere. Here are three excellent hotel options for a range of budgets.

Luxury – $$$

For a stylish high-rise stay in the heart of Sakae, look no further than The Royal Park Hotel Iconic Nagoya. It occupies the 24th through 32nd floors of the Chunichi Building and offers incredible views toward Nagoya Castle, Hisaya-odori Park, and MIRAI TOWER.

The hotel is also directly connected to Sakae and Sakaemachi stations through the underground mall, which is honestly a lifesaver when it’s raining or you’re carrying shopping bags!

Back at the hotel, you’ll find a tea lounge, four restaurants, a fitness center with a sauna, and a rooftop bar. As for pricing, rooms typically cost between ¥21,300 and ¥80,900 ($145–$550 USD) per night. Book your stay here on Booking.com!

Mid-range – $$

For our top mid-range pick in Sakae, we recommend Hotel Forza Nagoya Sakae. It’s just a 5-minute walk from Yaba-cho Station and around a 7-minute walk from Sakae Station, so getting around the city couldn’t be easier. 

We also love that this hotel provides a portable electric massager in every room; a small perk your legs will definitely appreciate after a full day of sightseeing! The breakfast buffet also serves a mix of local, Japanese, and Western favorites, which we always appreciate. 

Rooms generally cost between ¥8,800 and ¥23,500 ($60–$160 USD) per night, depending on the season. In our opinion, this is excellent value for a modern hotel in central Sakae. Check availability and book your stay here!

Budget – $

If you’re looking for something even more budget-friendly, the b nagoya is a fantastic choice. It’s just a 3-minute walk from Exit 13 of Sakae Station and less than five minutes walking from Yaba-cho Station, putting two of Nagoya’s most useful subway lines within easy reach.

The rooms here are simple, but it’s the little extras that make this hotel stand out. For example, you’ll enjoy free coffee in the lobby, plus every room comes with a fridge, which is super handy for storing drinks and snacks. There’s also a 24-hour convenience store downstairs, so you can grab breakfast or a late-night treat whenever you need one.

Price-wise, rooms typically cost a very reasonable ¥6,600–¥14,000+ ($45–$95+ USD) per night. Browse current prices and book your budget stay here!

For more options, see all of the hotels in Nagoya here!

Thanks for reading!

We loved visiting Nagoya because it felt a little ways off the main tourist trail, but full of local sights and amazing food! It’s definitely worth a visit, especially if you want to see a different side of Japan.

Need help planning the rest of your trip? See all of our Japan travel blogs! As lifelong travelers, we have a ton of resources and expertise to help you plan an epic getaway. Here are a few related blogs you might be interested in. Cheers!

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